Right, I've had this ready for a while. I couldn't see how to rework this to seem less overwhelming, so I eventually gave up and moved my focus into the next parts. On the other hand A.C. *did* decide to go for Overkill back in Part 19. Hopefully I can show more of the effects of that later on, and get the levelling back to where it should be (which I need to get my endgame to work).
“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting
**31**
Squad 7 swept down the corridors of the underground manufacturing plant trying to keep eyes in all directions, including down even though the ground was ‘solid’. It didn’t help that due to the ‘skylight’, shadows caught the eye more readily than they were comfortable with.
Deep within the simulated earth, there was a rumble. Squad 7 glanced at their maps, making sure they were in the blue of the safe zone. Far above there was another, far sharper rumble.
A mage to the ‘east’ of the squad snapped round to see nothing, then fell back to the landmate centring the squad.
Red-19 groused from the Landmate. While they’d all been doing it, Purple-12 was far more jumpy.
Blue-4 bit back a retort. Given their respective levels of protection, Purple-12 was being properly paranoid. It wasn’t like he was wearing MJOLNIR armour as Blue-4 was. And Red-19 had the cooling fins for his Lambda Driver deployed.
Green-8 on point in an A3 Hardsuit swept round what appeared to be a drop-forge, then reappeared flying backwards, chest plate smashed in, to crash against the girder on the other side of the corridor.
Blue-4 did the smart thing and tossed a plasma grenade round that corner.
Red-19 called out.
Grey-9 powered up his sensor array and pinged the area.
The Silver Sentinel shrugged his armoured shoulders.
The ‘Contact’ alarm from Squad 6 sounded over the Tac-Net.
Red-19 ordered.
Blue-4 disagreed.
The Landmate replied.
Purple-12 tossed the Landmate a nervous look before following the armoured figures.
A quick check showed Red-19 that Green-8 hadn’t taken a lethal hit, which was getting to be a worrying sign from the Scarlet Angel’s team. Sighing, he put a round through Green-8’s head and turned to move out.
The Landmate was thus caught by surprise as A.C. appeared from under her therm-optic cloak to the side of it and thrust her ribbon-sword through the edge of its cockpit seal, the sword just long enough to penetrate the skull and cause brain death. The raven-hared cyberneticist, holding Laevatein in her ribbons, triggered the external release of the Landmate. Once the Landmate opened, A.C. quickly pulled the dead pilot out, stripped him of anything vaguely useful (frowning at the smiley face boxers and wife-beater tank top) and fitted herself into the mech, sliding her Armed Device into the gaps in the fit, before closing the hatch, deploying the Damocles system, and flying out of there.
The cyborg cyberneticist sent, tapping into the Landmate’s computer systems.
On her HUD, Saber noted that a progress bar appeared but otherwise ignored it. She had enough problems with the Otome she was facing. Vivian was more intent on the download, given that A.C. was uploading the encryption schemes, codes, and co-ordinate systems in use by the Op-For, and the up to date version of the arena map.
The two armoured members of Squad 7 rounded a corner at speed and quite literally ran into Deimos’ Bolt from The Blue.
Purple-12 froze as the fairy looked at him.
“Oh, hey! It’s cutie-pie!”
“Blaze Cannon!” Purple-12 shouted, pointing his staff at the fairy. The blast of magic raged down the line.
“Ooo, cutie-pie wants to play rough.” The blue-clad fairy said cheerfully from beside Purple-12 head, causing the mage to recoil and pull his staff around.
“That could be fun.” A sultry voice said from behind him as he was wrapped in a hug. A red ribbon entangled the staff and yanked it out of his grip. “I wonder how much though?” A.C. continued, pressing her chest to Purple-12’s back as one of her hands wandered a little too low. “What do you think, sleeping beauty?”
Purple-12 slumped in her arms, and the raven-haired cyberneticist let him drop.
“Ah well, time to get back to work.” A.C. smiled as she tapped into the Op-For’s comm net.
***
The ‘Oh Crap’ feeling that the Forge Crew had when seeing their boss smile was born out as Team Peters went to town on the Op-For.
The Op-For, for their part, started to panic as ambushes were completely turned against them. Team Peters was smashing into the Op-For defences like a tsunami.
Then the monitoring A.I. struck back with an earthquake that forced Team Peters to back off.
The 'sharper rumble' is the cache going up. Putting a motion sensor on a hair-trigger in a seismically unstable region was a bad move Natsuko.
“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting
**31**
Squad 7 swept down the corridors of the underground manufacturing plant trying to keep eyes in all directions, including down even though the ground was ‘solid’. It didn’t help that due to the ‘skylight’, shadows caught the eye more readily than they were comfortable with.
Deep within the simulated earth, there was a rumble. Squad 7 glanced at their maps, making sure they were in the blue of the safe zone. Far above there was another, far sharper rumble.
A mage to the ‘east’ of the squad snapped round to see nothing, then fell back to the landmate centring the squad.
Red-19 groused from the Landmate. While they’d all been doing it, Purple-12 was far more jumpy.
Blue-4 bit back a retort. Given their respective levels of protection, Purple-12 was being properly paranoid. It wasn’t like he was wearing MJOLNIR armour as Blue-4 was. And Red-19 had the cooling fins for his Lambda Driver deployed.
Green-8 on point in an A3 Hardsuit swept round what appeared to be a drop-forge, then reappeared flying backwards, chest plate smashed in, to crash against the girder on the other side of the corridor.
Blue-4 did the smart thing and tossed a plasma grenade round that corner.
Red-19 called out.
Grey-9 powered up his sensor array and pinged the area.
The Silver Sentinel shrugged his armoured shoulders.
The ‘Contact’ alarm from Squad 6 sounded over the Tac-Net.
Red-19 ordered.
Blue-4 disagreed.
The Landmate replied.
Purple-12 tossed the Landmate a nervous look before following the armoured figures.
A quick check showed Red-19 that Green-8 hadn’t taken a lethal hit, which was getting to be a worrying sign from the Scarlet Angel’s team. Sighing, he put a round through Green-8’s head and turned to move out.
The Landmate was thus caught by surprise as A.C. appeared from under her therm-optic cloak to the side of it and thrust her ribbon-sword through the edge of its cockpit seal, the sword just long enough to penetrate the skull and cause brain death. The raven-hared cyberneticist, holding Laevatein in her ribbons, triggered the external release of the Landmate. Once the Landmate opened, A.C. quickly pulled the dead pilot out, stripped him of anything vaguely useful (frowning at the smiley face boxers and wife-beater tank top) and fitted herself into the mech, sliding her Armed Device into the gaps in the fit, before closing the hatch, deploying the Damocles system, and flying out of there.
The cyborg cyberneticist sent, tapping into the Landmate’s computer systems.
On her HUD, Saber noted that a progress bar appeared but otherwise ignored it. She had enough problems with the Otome she was facing. Vivian was more intent on the download, given that A.C. was uploading the encryption schemes, codes, and co-ordinate systems in use by the Op-For, and the up to date version of the arena map.
The two armoured members of Squad 7 rounded a corner at speed and quite literally ran into Deimos’ Bolt from The Blue.
Purple-12 froze as the fairy looked at him.
“Oh, hey! It’s cutie-pie!”
“Blaze Cannon!” Purple-12 shouted, pointing his staff at the fairy. The blast of magic raged down the line.
“Ooo, cutie-pie wants to play rough.” The blue-clad fairy said cheerfully from beside Purple-12 head, causing the mage to recoil and pull his staff around.
“That could be fun.” A sultry voice said from behind him as he was wrapped in a hug. A red ribbon entangled the staff and yanked it out of his grip. “I wonder how much though?” A.C. continued, pressing her chest to Purple-12’s back as one of her hands wandered a little too low. “What do you think, sleeping beauty?”
Purple-12 slumped in her arms, and the raven-haired cyberneticist let him drop.
“Ah well, time to get back to work.” A.C. smiled as she tapped into the Op-For’s comm net.
***
The ‘Oh Crap’ feeling that the Forge Crew had when seeing their boss smile was born out as Team Peters went to town on the Op-For.
The Op-For, for their part, started to panic as ambushes were completely turned against them. Team Peters was smashing into the Op-For defences like a tsunami.
Then the monitoring A.I. struck back with an earthquake that forced Team Peters to back off.
The 'sharper rumble' is the cache going up. Putting a motion sensor on a hair-trigger in a seismically unstable region was a bad move Natsuko.